


The Force of Some Inner Tide

by Rens_Knight



Series: In the Burning of the Light [22]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Literature, Sci-Fi, fan fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-05-14 15:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14772371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rens_Knight/pseuds/Rens_Knight
Summary: Since his passage into immortality, heretic Sith Lord Tarssus Kallig is finally free from the struggle for control of the Force that constantly demanded he suppress his truest nature except from those to whom he was closest.  His original body may have died, but his driving passion to know and to understand...and the compassion he need not ever fear again to show...have only been refined.  The immortal Light Inquisitor has spent many spans of his time investigating the secrets of his people's history--and also what, to him, is thousands of years in the future.  And things not only have not improved over the millennia...they have only gotten worse.Muchworse.Jedi Master Yoda has recently left 900 years of life in the mortal world, and must define his own immortality...a task that proves unexpectedly challenging when pursuing the events he helped set into motion leads yet again to a vision of deadly, unintended, and for him, incomprehensible consequences.  No longer an undisputed master of longevity and tradition, much to learn, it appears that even the most tenured of former mortals now has...





	The Force of Some Inner Tide

**Star Wars:  
In the Burning of the Light / Another Set of Eyes**

**"The Force of Some Inner Tide"  
**

****

_Three months after the arrival of the Jedi Master on Ahch-To_  


**__**  
Time becomes a strange thing when one is no longer fettered by the forces of decay.

There is still _change_ , still _growth_...things still move forward--from one's own perspective, that is.  But what came before, as experienced by oneself, is not necessarily what might be thought of as _before_ from the perspective of those whose time remains dictated by the inevitability of dying, for it becomes possible for the curious among the ascended ones, to examine an event by moving about it at all angles--and all causes and effects, in whatever sequence in which they find the most meaning.

Some places are particularly saturated with this sort of interest by the eternal.  The island chains of Ahch-To are one of them.  Though a majority in the long line of Lanai matrons, like Alcida-Auka, will not openly admit it, this is also part of the Caretakers' keeping of the Temple Island: to keep the sanctity and stillness of this place not just for the increasingly rare ones among the living who come to seek its ancient wisdom of Light and Dark, but also for those who have moved beyond mortality.  After all, for some, even the brightest ascension does not stifle--no, perhaps it even further _fuels_ \--the drive to further know, to further understand.

With every generation a few among the Caretakers, though theirs is not a faith that teaches them to seize hold of the reality around them and shape it according to their own will--rather to live humbly subordinate to wind, sea, and land--nonetheless find their eyes opened to the other layers of existence that flit back and forth across the Island.  Tolerance for open discussion of these visions has waxed and waned throughout the years, but it has never disappeared entirely.

As for Terna-Gentu, she is one of those who sees...and hears, as well.  At first, she thinks the voice belongs to the lone, forlorn seeker who has cloistered himself within the ancient Jedi village.  But the intonations are wrong--even though the language should be foreign to her, it is not...and the difference is clear as the stars in the cloudless night sky to Terna.  And this voice is much deeper.  Much more in command of itself, than the few words spoken by the shattered one had indicated.

Indeed, the spirit Terna turns to glimpse walking along the shoreline has the regal bearing of one who held great power in his lifetime, and the silver diadem that shines across his forehead all but confirms it.  The demeanor of the grey-blue robed human is pensive, yes, but there is no cruelty in these eyes that even in the night, Terna can easily discern are as blue as the midday sea.

The other is a far more reasonably-sized spirit, as far as Terna is concerned, though this one is still no Lanai...definitely not, with that head hair, however thin it is, and those protruding ears.  This is one of those spirits that, according to the lore that old Wairu-Adeli had told Terna when she was much younger, prides himself so highly on his long experience in the mortal world that he deliberately carries the signs of age about him like a cloak of honor even though beneath the wizened appearance is a body--however intangible to Terna--that is just as rejuvenated as that of the tall human spirit.

Terna lowers herself to a sitting position, her talons tucked beneath her and gripping the rocks, and she watches.  She listens past the foreignness of the spirits' words to that which unites all that has breathed in the Force.  "... _Tarssus Kallig_ ," the human spirit is saying in response to the other.  " _My birth name, and chosen name.  But you began downstream of me, did you not?_ "

" _Hmm...archaic the robes you wear are.  And strange_ ," the green one remarks.  " _Not since Ruusan have such garments been seen.  And even then...not on Jedi._ "

" _Oh, you would be surprised what I saw from Jedi, if you go further back upstream to where_ I _came from.  They were strict enough then--but the exigencies of prolonged war have a way of sorting out the important matters from the unimportant ones.  At least_ \--"  The spirit who called himself Tarssus Kallig shrugged.  " _That is the theory.  In practice...the implementation is rather spotty at best.  I found that true of Jedi nearly as much as I did Sith._ "

" _And Jedi...you are_ not."  The smaller one jabs a clawed finger at the tall one.  " _You...hmm...a rarity indeed.  Redeemed Sith, you must be._ "

The fur above one of the human's eye rises--an expression Terna-Gentu has learned to recognize in species of his template as skepticism.  Or disdain.  " _And_ you _have_ not _required redemption into the eternal state?  I should like to know how a mortal accomplishes_ that _, little Jedi._ "

" _Replying to a question with a question.  A familiar technique_ this _is--to teach, yes, very,_ very _useful for that.  But also to_ evade _._ "  The green one waggles a finger at the much taller creature.  " _Deny it you did not...a Sith Lord, you truly were_."

 _Sith_.  

Terna has heard the name before...all of the Caretakers had, though she's heard it a bit more often than most, given her ear for the words of the spirits that visited the island.  She knows what they were to the Jedi: the ancient nemesis of their own lineage, the one foe above all others, the one whose utter extermination they had long believed would herald peace.  For Terna there is no need to build the great ships that sail the stars instead of the waves, to know this.  The spectral visitors, and the rare pilgrims among the living, have been enough to bring that understanding to her.

The appearance of a Sith, in this way, is a rarity.  Some of those visits could even be attributable to the _same_ spirits...perhaps even including this one...as they venture back and forth amongst the generations.  And tales of Sith spirits throughout the galaxy have been brought to her world in one way or the other...vengeful, bound, tormented by a timestream that still ravages their minds even if it no longer holds their old bodies.  

Terna knows that according to the Jedi, she ought to fear.  But spirits of this sort--the unbound, the shining ones who casually roam about without a thought of being seen...or _not_ seen...and without wielding their influence upon the mortals of the world--they cannot help but show their truest, and greatest, natures.  Thus she fears neither the Jedi spirit, nor Tarssus Kallig, as she awaits the towering one's response.

" _There is nothing to deny_ ," Kallig replies.  " _If you heard of me, it was most likely as Darth Imperius...my Sith name.  I lived--and died--as Sith...I was never_ cleansed _of what I was as you seem to assume._ "He sighs.  Whether or not he _needs_ to breathe in some way unconnected to the type of air Terna and the living things of Ahch-To draw in, she doesn't know.  But the meaning is unmistakable, perhaps even universal to all lunged creatures.  His tone as he continues leaves even less doubt as to his intent. " _Oh,_ do _stop looking at me like that...did you_ really _think it impossible?_ "  The green one opens his mouth to respond, but Tarssus Kallig... _Lord_ Kallig, Terna figures...doesn't give him a chance." _As for you...y_ _ou have a name, do you not?  Enlighten me._ "

The smaller being cackles--not a malevolent sound, by any means, but beyond that, Terna can discern little as to what he really thinks of the human.  " _Heh, heh...an impatient one you are.  Truly a Sith, I see.  But tell you, I will: Grand Master Yoda, I once was._ "

" _I cannot say patience has ever truly been a virtue of mine.  But 'young'?_ "  Kallig folds his arms across his chest.  " _Be careful, Yoda.  I may not know what I would have looked or sounded like in old age as you do_ _, but you said it yourself--I precede you by three of your lifetimes, and I have spent plenty of effort since my death to acquaint myself with the timeflows in between.  Quite enough study to grasp the context of anything you might care to discuss, and perhaps_ more _so for having lived in a time where multiple ways of living with the Force were in full flower._ "

Yoda snorts.  It doesn't strike Terna as a particularly dignified response.  Then again, Yoda seems like one of those more interested in cultivating an air of mystique rather than dignity--but in the end, both are a species of vanity to which the spiritual orders are especially vulnerable if taken too far.  " _Compare the Sith way to a healthy organism, I would_ not _.  Corrupted to its very root, the Sith Order was, when sundered from the Jedi they were._ "

Kallig folds his arms across his chest.  " _Oh, it was_ always _so easy for you Jedi to believe that simple line--it spared you all manner of difficult decisions._ Suffering from _corruption?  Yes.  That we did, for a very, very long time.  And yet..._ "  

Sadness washes over the ancient Sith spirit as he stares off across impossible spans of space and time.  " _There was something there.  Something that certain lords among us recognized and tried to seize hold of, that had existed from the very start, even before you exiled us to the Stygian Caldera.  Sorzus Syn--XoXaan--Ajunta Pall--Karness Muur...the_ Jen'jidai-- _I believe you called them the Dark Jedi...they did evil.  I understand that, regardless of the_ official _histories of my Empire.  How could I not see that, when I stood side-by-side with the Sith Purebloods in my time, that the_ Jen'jidai _saw in theirs as nothing more than slaves?  How could they have deserved that then, when we knew by_ my _time that they weren't to be treated that way?  Surely the_ truth _hadn't suddenly changed--either it was true for all time, or for none._ "

" _Yet in_ spite _of yourselves it was, that you set them free_ ," Yoda asserts.  " _Every such effort, your Dark Lords resisted.  The Sith way, the relinquishment of power is_ not _\--always grasping for more, the Darkness is, never satisfied.  The way of the Jedi, it seems, those like you rediscovered, whether willing or not to admit it, you were.  Out of the Darkness, wisdom can never be born._ "

Lord Kallig shakes his head.  " _No.  No, that was never it.  That was never it at all.  The_ Jen'jidai _were led by lords who truly had fallen to_ evil _.  Not simply overpowered by something in the Force that they should have stayed away from.  To evil, within their own hearts.  But let me tell you what_ your _official histories were so careful to excise, Master Jedi.  When the Hundred Years' Darkness fell--when Sorzus Syn and her compatriots began their campaign against you--you reacted against it not simply by striking back, not simply by forbidding_ cruelty _and_ wanton conquest _.  That was the moment when you decided you were going to exorcise yourselves of every last little bit of feeling, and demand that of any being who would ever want to learn the ways of the Force after you.  That was the moment you made the_ Jen'jidai _rebellion about so much more than just about power and territory, and when you ensured the war was_ never _going to end as long as your order lived--if not with_ us _, then with_ someone _._ "

 __Kallig's voice trembles now with sorrow, and what might otherwise have been a vicious accusation turns instead into a desperate plea, the human spirit's arms swept wide as if to take in the entire galaxy.  " _Tell me now--in the time-and-space in which we stand--that this is not the truth...!_ "  Now he points up to the mountain.  " _Tell me that it's not the fear of the_ inner self _that leads to suffering, and to destruction!  Tell me it isn't choking another soul to death where we speak!_ "  He shakes his head, shoulders slumped, ethereal body gone still.  " _That is why we held that truth so dear, that your inner suicide was a lie.  Your Order drove people to the side of the_ Jen'jidai _and their descendants, time and time again for thousands of years--not_ just _people who simply desired power...but Force-wielders who simply desired to_ live _, and to whom you left_ no _other path open._ "

" _Anger?  Hatred?  Suffering?  Hmff._ "  Yoda taps the walking stick he doesn't truly need, on the ground.  To Terna there is no sound, though she wonders if Yoda and Tarssus Kallig perceive it differently.  " _Even if flawed the Jedi were, no excuse can there be for embracing those.  So my own Padawan chose, knowing that Darth Sidious nothing else could embody.  For two there were: one to hold the power, the second to crave it._ "

" _Darth Bane!_ " Lord Kallig spits out.  Then he glowers at Yoda.  " _There is_ plenty _I could say about that bloody-minded imbecile and his Rule of Two.  But how much good, I wonder, would it do?_ _It is fortunate we are both now above mistakes of the fatal kind--I well remember when an attempt to parlay like this would lead to blows.  But eternal beings or not, I shan't care to waste my breath laying out the facts if the only result is to be arguing in circles and having the same slogans and condemnations repeated at me over and over again._ _So do you actually care to_ hear _what I have to say, Master Jedi?  Or are you as utterly intractable as your dogmatisms would suggest?_ "

Yoda bows his head, propping himself with both hands atop his walking stick.  " _To understand this new darkening of the Light, my aim in coming here was_ ," he replies, his declamatory voice grown tremulous instead.  " _The beginning of my journey, this is.  But coincidences in the Force, there are not--that you find this same still place and time in your own journey...a sign this must be.  Unpleasant to hear, some answers may be...yet bitter, sometimes, the medicine must be.  Perhaps our Archives, inviolate were not._ "

Tarssus Kallig speaks softer now.  " _To believe that_ any _archive truly is...that is the first weapon those who would control what the people believe, would use._ _Perhaps it takes coming from an unfree society where it is tacitly acknowledged that history stands to be rewritten by the ruling class, to truly appreciate the need for skepticism.  No Sith would have ever believed_ our _archives inviolate.  I certainly did not._

 __" _I was once the Dark Councillor of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge.  I_ lived _in that truth, every day.  We were tasked with preserving the lore of our Empire and our Order...and there were many, throughout the centuries, who used information--or the erasure thereof--to suit their interests.  There were many things to which I could not authorize general release, but nonetheless, I took the role of my Sphere to be one of ensuring that petty personal disputes and long-past duels were not allowed to interfere with the Sith--and our Empire--learning what we needed to know to survive.  If preserving the power of the Sith Order were the only concern, the Spheres of Sith Philosophy and Intelligence would have been more than sufficient for that.  Yet for all the corruption there was in our Order, the need for a counterbalance to their...liberties with history...was understood._

" _So do you care, now, Master Yoda, to listen--to see what has happened to bring this timestream to_ this _?_ "  Lord Kallig gestures up the mountain once more, where the unseen human penitent cloaks himself, perhaps forever, in silence and solitude.

Yoda nods several times to himself as he slowly begins to speak.  " _Hm.  Yes.  What I care...it matters not.  What I need...everything, that is.  Listen, and consider, I will.  Believe...that we shall see._ "

" _Fair enough, I suppose_ ," Kallig replies.

The ancient Sith begins to weave an orb of lightning between his hands then, absently sculpting it with precise twitches of the fingers that betray many years of life--and immortality--to practice his art.  Terna cannot help but stare at this intense glow that her inward eye allows her to see before her.  A huddle of _nuruwaia-oporgu_...Little Cousins, as the feathered, waddling lanaioform creatures are called, gather near Terna as if drawn by the lightning's glow.  No, wait...perhaps they _are_ drawn by its glow.  Could it truly be, that Kallig's lightning shimmers in the little creatures' great round eyes?  Or is it simply Terna's own sight of the ethereal that makes it appear thus?

Lord Kallig continues to tinker with his tiny lightning-orb as he starts speaking.  " _Do you know, Master Yoda, where the Jedi Order comes from, what this world is?  Have you truly traveled there_ _for yourself yet, or merely been told?_ "

" _Many legends about the birth of the Jedi Order there are_ ," Yoda recalls.  " _Tython or Ossus, some name as the first world.  But this world, this Temple, the truest have named.  And here it is, where the ruins lie._ "

Kallig shakes his head.  " _No.  No, that is not so.  Your people lost the truth...or wished to forget.  We of my Sith Empire...we remembered more.  And since my passage, I have spent much time traveling, learning, observing through spacetime, searching out the rest.  Ahch-To...it is the birth world of_ something _.  But it is not the true,_ first _birthplace of the_ Je'daii _Order_. _What do you know of the Je'daii?_ "

" _The ancient name of the Jedi, that must be.  Nothing more._ "

" _No..._ "  Kallig sighs--not with exasperation now, but with a sort of solemn resignation.  " _They were so much_ more _.  They lived many millennia before either of us, during the first birth of truly galactic civilization, on the world of Tython...the same Tython you will have heard of from_ my _time.  And they were not_ Jedi _.  Their very name embodies this, for 'Je'daii' meant the Mystic Center.  They were the People of the Balance, and for them, there was a place for Light and Dark powers, each in their due measure._

 __" _Eventually there was a schism, and some fell away.  Tython's biosphere was severely damaged then, so your Order started calling itself 'Jedi' and moved to Ossus, a little poorer and a little further from the old balance._ "  Kallig draws his hands a bit further apart.  The lightning-orb he has been weaving starts to grow tenuous, as the currents strain to bridge the gap between his hands, let alone create a stable, suspended ball of plasma in the center. " _They started to confuse the Light and Dark powers in the Force with the good and evil within_ people _, and they treated--and condemned--people accordingly.  So when another schism came...really, should it come as a surprise that the reactions on both sides had only become_ more _extreme than the schism the old Je'daii faced?_ That _was what eventually led to the exile of my ancestors, and the birth of the Sith Empire._

 __" _What your histories never told is how weakened the Jedi were by the whole ordeal.  Not just the defeated Jen'jidai.  The Jedi survivors fled to_ another _world to regroup...and that world was Ahch-To.  And here is where the balance died.  Not now, with Master Skywalker's defeat--but then, in the deep past, when the Jedi Code became your shackles, and even the slightest variance from its strictures became an irreversible evil in your eyes._ "

Lord Kallig now spreads his hands even further apart.  The orb of lightning once precisely balanced between them now snaps out of existence with a blinding burst.  And when the electricity passes back and forth between his hands now, the discharge is violent, just barely on this side of chaos.  Terna's insides grow cold.  Kallig is dead, and yet...the _nuruwaia-oporgu_ flinched at the same time as she did.  Were they merely reacting to her own unease?  Or can they really see it too, as something still somehow _real_ to those in the mortal world?  The ancient Sith spirit never looks in her direction--but he lowers his hands.  The lightning ceases.

Yoda mulls this over, brow furrowed, mouth set into a deep frown.  " _Mistaken...perhaps...you are_ ," he suggests.  But that's all it is this time.  The dogmatic certainty of before is beginning to crumble.  " _Contemplated the mosaic in the Temple above, I have.  Balance, this image embodies...not its death.  What they found--the way of the Jedi--difficult, yes, it was.  But for many millennia, its worth it proved.  Only in the last years, when clouded the Force grew, could the Sith ever overcome._ "  
____  
" _And that was_ only _because we fought amongst ourselves, that your end did not come much sooner.  A group of us--Sith and Jedi together--rose for a brief time...they called us the Eternal Alliance_."  Lord Kallig chuckles to himself...a soft, forlorn sort of sound.  " _We were anything but.  We had such hopes...we dared to dream that we might show the galaxy what true balance was, once more.  What it meant to follow a_ right passion _.  To truly_ be _, and preserve the being of others.  It began, in part, with family.  With my wife, Lord Ashara, who came from the Jedi.  With my brother, Talos, and the others around us.  If we had been able to overcome the millennia of inertia that had already set in, the healing the Alliance could have brought would have been immense.  But that time was exceedingly brief.  There was already too much fear and greed...on_ both _sides...for it to last._

 __" _And when we died--myself, my colleagues...and most of all, my family--no one remained to fight to preserve a memory that was far too inconvenient for the politicians, or the keepers of dogma, to abide.  And so...like the Temple here...we faded into a mere myth, and those records of us that_ did _remain were deconstructed and twisted around to fit whatever revisionist narrative the scholar in question liked._ "  Kallig shakes his head, though this time the trace of humor about him seems a touch greater.  " _You should speak to my brother about that sometime.  Talos had history in his veins even_ before _he became a part of it.  When he found out what happened after our passage, he was absolutely_ incensed _, and rightly so.  Believe me, he will be quite happy to give you an earful about the importance of truly--_ truly _preserving the past, both the good and the bad of it.  You will be there for quite the span...and it will be absolutely worth it._

 __" _But there will be another span of eternity for that_ ," Kallig says as he straightens his spine, appearing to snap himself back to business.  " _What I have just told you is enough for you to understand the full significance of what I_ will _tell you._ "  The Sith ghost points up the Temple hill.  " _The mural you see up there...it was built as it was out of old habit, as it still had been in the days before the Jen'jidai rebelled.  And you_ are _right, that it does represent balance.  But what you see there preserves the philosophy of the beings who_ came _here.  Not the ones who_ left _it, and decided that only the 'balance' of a perfect asceticism in the name of the Light could survive.  What they_ took _from here was the path of the Jedi_ you _and I knew of.  A path that was just as doomed to failure as that of the Sith--and even_ more _so, because at least a few of_ us _could strip away our traditions and find something greater within_ our _Code.  Yours...left nothing but unambiguous emptiness.  And as the ancients said, nature abhors a vacuum._ "  
__  
Yoda leans heavier yet again on his walking stick.  " _Incomplete the training was, that to Luke I gave.  That I knew--even then.  And yet...if incomplete it_ always _was--everything of which I a Master was..._ "

The smaller being lets the silence carry the rest of his meaning.  Tarssus Kallig nods.  " _You see now._ "  There is no joy, no condescension in this.  It simply is.  " _He sought to make the best of what he had.  And yet...it wasn't enough.  It_ couldn't _be._ _Master Skywalker tried his damnedest to build a solid foundation out of ashes.  And with all the many times, from the Galactic Empire all the way back, that history was written, erased, and rewritten again, there was so little way for him to know better.  To know that the pieces of dogma he had learnt would never be enough to protect him.  Or even the ones he loved.  The way of the Jedi left a vacuum--and that monstrosity in the Unknown Regions rushed to fill it in._ "

" _So_ quickly _it happened_..." Yoda laments, shaking his head.  " _So_ soon _after the Jedi are reborn--destroyed, they are once more.  Even the Jedi I once knew...a thousand years it took, the revenge of the Sith to complete.  This...the barest fraction of a lifetime._ "

Kallig sighs, knitting his fingers together as he contemplates.  " _I know_ ," he replies _._ " _Yet should it surprise you that the cycle accelerates each time?  Every time, the action and reaction grows more extreme, from one opposite to the other.  If this continues...the only question is how much will remain in its wake once it is finally extinguished.  If the Force is within all mortal life...then is that the ultimate price left to be paid?  A barren galaxy?  A barren universe?  We have an eternity to be grateful for, you and I.  But for no_ new _lives, new opportunities to ever come into being--is that what happens if the Force spirals forever into chaos?  That_ ," the ancient Sith Inquisitor declares, " _is a question to which I should very much_ never _like to see the answer._ "

With a series of ripples up and down her skin as if to ruffle a coat of feathers her people no longer bear, Terna-Gentu vehemently concurs.  Even with everything her people have done to preserve what, if she understands Kallig correctly, may well be the very last remnant of what the Jedi Order was before it abandoned the last of its founding tenets, and to keep their world as untouched by the ravages of technology and interstellar politics as they can...Ahch-To would fall just as completely as everywhere else would.  Everything, from the Great and Little Cousins on the land to the twinfins in the sea, all the way down to the tiniest bit of algae...extinguished utterly.

And _that_ is what the catastrophe that drove the man on the hill out of the greater galaxy and into this place, has placed at stake.

It is not the place of her people to change the galaxy.  That Terna well knows.  But it _is_ their place to understand it, more than they ever allow it to recognize.  It is for this purpose, she understands, that she has the sight of the deceased, and that she--and they--are here, now, in this moment.  Even if the mortal universe itself falls, barely even knowing the question, there will be at least one who knows the answer.

" _Hope...there_ must _be.  Yet hope_ here _...there is not.  Followed young Skywalker, I did, thinking with him that hope lay.  But his suffering under Vader--under Sidious, even more...under all the missing pieces that impossible to arrange were...overcame him those moments did, when the child's nightmares he touched.  The corruption--Snoke--woven within those dreams was he.  Like Sidious, it was.  Remembered trauma, one instant too long, he relived.  When returned from the past young Skywalker did, destroyed, the future already was._ "

Kallig nods.  Strangely, his eyes glisten even more than their ethereal look already entails--no tear falls, his species' signal of sorrow, yet to Terna it seems as if the Sith Lord mourns.  Mourns for the man he never met in the days he lived, the man who might well have struck _him_ down in one moment of primal anguish, if somehow their paths _had_ converged.  And yet he does.

The human's low voice trembles, ever so slightly, as he speaks once more.  " _I have been up that mountain, and I have seen Master Skywalker's suffering.  And I've been to the point in time-and-space that sent him here.  Suffering is radiating forth from that moment.  And it will only grow worse if no one stands up once and for all to_ stop it."  Lord Kallig sighs again.  " _I had hopes for him--that I might manifest myself to him one day and guide him along the way.  But that only works--it's only_ right _\--with someone who is truly open to the possibilities you want to show them.  I follow the same law as you in that.  I hoped so dearly there would be an opening, as there was with certain ones among the Sith and the Jedi when I lived..._ "

" _But now--far deeper lie the wounds the abomination Snoke has caused him.  Deeper still than even those of the Sith.  Mere wounds they have ceased to be now...a deadly cancer they now are, spreading throughout his soul._ "  Yoda nods to himself, as if by this he has forced the hard truth to his sight.

Tarssus Kallig reciprocates the gesture...then sets his hand to his chest.  " _And my being now--Sith Lord that I am--would only cause him greater distress, no matter_ how _much I might long to make myself known to him.  I cannot save him anymore, if there was ever a chance.  Perhaps in the Places Beyond this timestream I might have made contact...but not in_ this _timestream.  Not anymore.  If there will ever be an opening for anyone, it will be for one of you.  A Jedi._ "

" _Sealed himself off from the Force entirely he has--break through his defenses, I cannot.  And will not._ "  Yoda turns for a moment to the sea, as if contemplating walking away upon it, off to some other island, some other world, or time.

Lord Kallig follows the smaller spirit's gaze.  " _Yes.  I know.  I could feel it too._ "   
  
" _Yet hope...there_ must _be.  Hope we_ must _find_."  Yoda taps his walking stick upon the ground as if he were one of the Lanai Visitor-males, driving his bone-blade harpoon into the sea.  " _Hmph...not so_ easy _as once I thought, when Grand Master of the Jedi Order I was.  So much_ more _to know there is, than ever I imagined.  So_ few _possibilities, I carry within me.  Yet so_ many _beyond me there must be_."  
_  
"And beyond me as well_ ," the Sith Lord concurs.  " _I do not pretend to have the solution either.  Yet I_ long _for one to exist, somewhere, with all my deepest passion.  Even now, I know only one way to try and bring it to light.  I was an Inquisitor in my time, after all...and truly, I still am.  Go to the times and places I have named_ ," Kallig directs the...newly-passed?...Jedi being.  " _See and test the truth for yourself.  Then you can return here to this place, perhaps a bit further forward in time, to search for an opening.  I dare not manifest myself, I know...but if there is any way I may assist you in that moment, Master Jedi, it shall be my honor to be at your side._ "

The diminutive Yoda offers a single, solemn nod.  " _An honor it_ shall _be, Darth Imperius, Lord of the Sith._ "  And Yoda vanishes from Terna's sight--and presumably Lord Kallig's as well--before the Sith spirit's astonishment even has a chance to register on hisfeatures.

As it registers with him, Kallig stares out past the surf, to the dark horizon above which stars and moon dance.  He holds this position for several minutes.

Just as Terna figures the ancient spirit has slipped into a state of contemplation suited only for the timescales the eternal ones deal with, however, Kallig unfreezes and turns.  Then he turns his gaze right upon Terna-Gentu herself.  The Lanai Caretaker's eyes go wide--it's as if Kallig could truly be observing _her_.  Recognizing that _he_ has been observed this whole time.  Never have any of the spirits to visit this island given the slightest sign of acknowledging her presence.  Could it be...?

Then he speaks.  To _her_.  " _A brief suggestion to you, young one, if I may._ "

His countenance--his voice--they are both nothing but kind.  Still, Terna's heart almost stops beating beneath her breastbone.  "Me?" she faintly squawks in her native language.  "What...you want to talk to me?"

Kallig smiles, understanding her words just as perfectly as she does his own foreign speech.  " _Yes, good Caretaker.  There's nothing to fear--I promise._ "

"Y-yes...of course," she stammers.  "I mean no disrespect.  It's just...this is the first time..."

" _I still remember the first time a ghost spoke to_ me _before I entered the eternal_ ," Tarssus replies with a gentle laugh.  " _I quite understand.  But you are doing quite well.  You understand, though...I suppose you heard, why I cannot do this for Master Skywalker_."

"I do," Terna says.  It's gnawed at her ever since the weathered old Jedi arrived-- _nothing_ , it seems, can reach him.  Not the Force, not the Lanai Caretakers...nothing but his own sorrow.  And certainly not this spirit who, whatever else he was, was and still is in some foreign and beautiful way...Sith.

" _Those little creatures with you...the porgs?_ "  Kallig gestures down at the _nuruwaia-oporgu_ still huddling together hardly a meter away from Terna.  " _They have no fear of sentients?_ "

Terna-Gentu chirps her agreement.  "They are our Little Cousins.  They never have had to fear us.  Never will, so long as we're here."

" _You might consider seeing if you can coax some of them Master Skywalker's way when he can't see what it is you're doing_ ," Lord Kallig suggests.  " _Maybe no man or woman can reach him...but an innocent creature like a porg cares only that they are fed and shown affection.  They do not judge past or future.  That man...he's only a step away from coming unmoored altogether, and not in the way that brings true comfort.  He needs_ something _to keep him tethered to this world, or I fear he will remove himself from it.  I have not seen how he_ will _depart from this timestream--there is more than one way.  But_ that _must_ not _be one of them._ "

"Indeed not," Terna muses.  "That is a violation of life itself.  It _must_ be prevented."

" _I wish there were more to be done_ ," Kallig says.  " _But not here, not in_ this _time-and-space.  At least it's a start._ "

Terna chirps once more--a soft, low sound this time.  It seems like a sound enough plan. "That it is."

With that, Tarssus Kallig gently fades away into the unseen realms known only to the eternal.

This will be a change.  But at least...it comes from the natural order.  And that, Terna-Gentu can accept.  


**Author's Note:**

> This story"officially" brings the universes of _In the Burning of the Light_ and _Another Set of Eyes_ into a single continuity. It can _also_ lead into the canon universe of _The Last Jedi_ , given the stance Terna-Gentu takes about sharing the secrets of the dead--other than the Lanai Caretakers, none of the living will ever know this conversation has taken place.
> 
> Also, for my musical inspiration for this story, read the lyrics of Pink Floyd's song "High Hopes." Though especially applicable, on the surface, to Tarssus Kallig as a Light Sith who gave his life in an ultimately unsuccessful fight to establish something lasting and better...it also works from another point of view...


End file.
